Ramblings in Seattle

Top of Mill Creek Chair - Stevens Pass, WA

I just got back yesterday from a trip up to Seattle to visit my girlfriend. My internship is up at Columbia Sportswear so I could now stay longer than the weekend which would be nice for both of us. Because she is still working, it gave me the opportunity to have the whole day to pursue outdoorsy activities while she was at work. I am thinking about getting a new pair of skis so I wanted to demo a pair while I was up there in hopes of finding some powder to test them on. In the end, I ended up renting a pair of Fischer Watea 94s. They were a little on the heavy side but were 94 under foot, which is significantly better than what I'm skiing on now.

So Monday morning, as Kerrie headed off to work, I made my way up to Stevens Pass. They hadnt received any snow recently so I was a little worried about the conditions that I would face. Regardless, I figured it would be a good day to hone some of my skills. I am not the most technical skier so I'll take all the practice that I can get. After purchasing my lift ticket and a quick scan of the map, I headed up the mountain. The weather was on the warmer side at around 45 degrees and I quickly realized that I had overdressed for the day. The sky was blue with no wind, but the snow was pretty hard packed and sparse in some locations. After a few warm up runs to get used to the new skis, I headed up to check out some black diamonds and begin my training. The only way to get better is to ski things that make you uncomfortable and then repeat until you are comfortable. So thats what I did, skied steep mogul runs and tight trees for most of the morning.

After a quick lunch of Ramen noodles and an apple, I relayered and headed back up. I spend most of the second half of the day skiing groomers and working on using my poles more efficiently. The backside of the mountain wasnt open and neither was 7th Heaven Lift so I quickly felt like I was running out of new terrain. With almost no one on the mountain, I could ski right up to the gates and jump on the chair in less than a minute. In the end, I got over 20 runs in and my legs were definitely feeling it by the end of the day. I cleared out at 3:45p with irrational hopes of missing Seattle's notorious traffic.

Lunch at the car

On Tuesday, I head up I-90 towards snoqualmie pass to go on a little snowshoe adventure. I had hopes of shoeing up and over to Talapus Lake, but after a late start, I realized that goal would probably not happen. Nevertheless, I set out at around 11:45am with little snow cover, carrying my snowshoes on my pack. I huffed it up to the summer trailhead at around 2.5 miles and continued for another 30 minutes before stopping for lunch. After another Jetboil and Ramen Noodle lunch, I strapped on my snowshoes and headed back down. I seemed to take significantly better time due to the increase in traction the snowshoes provided and wished that i had tried them on the way up. I'll remember that for next time. I got back down to the car in about an hour. I proceed to test out the ski pulka that Adam and I had been building the past couple of days. I tried it on a variety of terrain and confirmed the fact that fins will significantly increase the sleds tracking ability. Adam and I will have to design them sometime this week so we can test it again on his next day off.

Talapus Lake

EveryTrail - Find the best Hiking in Washington

Wednesday, I visited REIs flagship store in Seattle and later attended Kerrie's work's holiday party aboard a Waterways Yacht. The evening proceed with a formal dinner followed by significant libating curtesy of the open bar. Thursday morning, I headed back to Portland through a significant rain stormed that had my windshield wiper on full blast for the full duration of my 3.5 hour journey home.

UNT,

Bryan

Fischer Watea 94s

Ski Pulka aka sled